The Human Car

Ok guys, fresh meat! In the five most common bike-car collisions:

THE OVERTAKING
A motorist hits a cyclist from behind.

https://www.bicycling.com/article/1,6...6638-1,00.html

Eat it up!

Bekologist

are overtaking accidents gaining prominence? a rise in distracted, texting and cell phone dialing motorists, perhaps?

Interesting article in bicycling there..... how multiple studies have shown that the single most important factor to increasing safety of bicyclists is....butts on bikes yep. what increases bicyclist safety?

not a highly trained cadre of alpha dog cyclists, mostly male and under 40, claiming the lane on autocentric road networks; rather, the bane of forestorism, butts on bikes regardless of training or traffic savvy....

bring it on! I want more butts.... sung to a Sir Mix-a-Lot ditty.....

joejack951

I had a similar discussion with ghetoocruiser about a study done in Canada. They showed hits from behind as being in the top 3 or 5 collisions IIRC. Problem was they did not distinguish between a motorist passing too closely and clipping a cyclist from a direct hit from behind. Again IIRC, the deaths they referred to were almost all cyclists riding at night without lights.

Ed Holland

mmmm me wanty a Nissan!

Ed Holland

And more seriously...
Well, from my experience over the last couple of days, I'd say the most likely cause of collision with a car would be:

1, "Right hook"

2, Failure to yield by a car merging from the right into my right of way

A good portion of incidents noted may also be a result of "distracted driving" factors e.g. driver observed with cellphone.
Close passes are mighty un-nerving but being overtaken is not amongst my top worries, based on experience so far.
Eyes open, anticipation anticipation anticipation, etc. etc.

Ed

ChipSeal

Until the statistics break out law abiding adult cyclists as a category, the statistics are too muddled for good analysis for experienced cyclists.

If we had good data on injuries and collisions with a similar break-out category it would be helpful. Alas, the prospects of that being realized is dim.

I read with great interest the details of all individual collisions. I try to ride in such a way that I eliminate or reduce as many identifiable hazards as I can.

It is natural to over estimate the overtaking hazard. It is the most frequent potential conflict we have with motorists. How often do we get passed? Motorists are focused forward and trained to avoid things in their way. This instinct is reinforced every time they move their vehicle. It is quite strong! I have witnessed motorists swerving from errant balloons and wind blown shopping bags- objects that clearly could do no harm to them.

There are some risks that it is impossible to defend against: the psychotic and the medically impaired. Fortunately, the possibility of meeting such hazards is so low that it is not worth the effort of worrying about it.

In my opinion, right hooks and left hooks make up about 74% of the hazards of collision, the likelihood divided about even between the two. Right and left crosses for the next 25% or so and overtaking for the balance. (Caveat: this is assuming that one religiously avoids the door zone!) Insofar as my opinion reflects reality, my attention should be focused forward, and I should be taking the lane as much as possible, for doing so completely eliminates right hooks and mitigates the risk of the rest.

invisiblehand

Hey ... all we have to do is avoid riding with other A&S forum participants and the probability goes to zero.

StrangeWill

While nice in theory, it assumes that in one instance a vehicle operator is going to make an error due to bad driving practices, but the solution expects them to make a good driving practice decision!

Allister

Maybe it's just an inadvertent drift towards prominence.